


Beauchamp, Plain and Tall (Jamie's Story)

by thatsoccercoach



Series: Beauchamp, Plain and Tall [2]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms
Genre: Falling In Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-01-04 13:43:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18344852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsoccercoach/pseuds/thatsoccercoach
Summary: What was Jamie thinking when he was writing to Claire? Meeting her? Falling in love with her?





	1. Chapter 1

                                                             

It was simple. They hadn’t a housekeeper anymore. He needed help. The children needed a mother. And he had placed an advertisement in the paper.

She had written in her letters that she was plain and tall. There was more behind the words, he knew. But he hadn’t _expected_ more nor had he minded. Reading her letters describing herself he thought that maybe it would be easier that way. They’d be together purely out of convenience. It would be good for the children. The expectations would be that he’d provide for her, that she’d be a helpmeet. She was independent. He had been in love.

He’d also been mistaken.

When she came off the train he immediately knew who she was. She disembarked through the door of the last car on the train, standing straight though he was certain she had been seated and cramped for far too long. Pale skin with a dusting of freckles. Eyes the color of fine whisky. Not plain at all, not that tall compared to his own height. But that wasn’t how he instantly knew her.

She radiated something from the core of her being and he felt it like some sort of vibration that hummed in his bones and called to him in a way that couldn’t be explained with mere words.

She carried the sea with her, that was clear, and it may have been what set her apart. Maybe it was how she dressed. He thought it could have been something how she walked, how she carried herself, that reminded him of the selkie stories his mam had told when he was just a lad.

What was it about her?

Like her sea with eddies and currents, her hair was always untamed.

“Quite a dull brown I’ve always thought,” Claire said one day in an off-handed and self-deprecating tone.

It was anything but. The way the curls shone in the sunlight, bouncing the rays and creating new hues, almost auburn or a deep walnut color that he never noticed existed before.

She hadn’t any children, had even revealed to him in a letter that she hadn’t planned on them at all though she certainly didn’t mind them. But once she’d arrived, her tenderness with the children had drawn them all together in some way he didn’t quite understand.

Willie wanted a mother desperately, he knew, and the lad wasn’t all that discerning. Yet there was a sense about Claire that she was safe and secure. Bree wanted things to be as she remembered them. And in her special way Claire prodded and probed until she reached his Bree’s heart as well.

He had fears and concerns along with the wordless pull that he felt. The prairie wasn’t hers as the sea was. He wasn’t sure that could be changed. But he’d left Scotland for this place. Mayhap it could become her place as well.

Claire loved fiercely and was willing to risk it all, without reservation. He watched it first with the dogs and then the sheep. Noticed it with the children as she washed their hair or mended their clothes. When they sat together before the fire after the children were in bed and Claire gently fingered the tear in Willie’s pants before drawing the frayed edges together. He saw how Brianna’s apron, the one she’d quietly sulked over because of the old reused fabric and drab color, had been carefully embroidered with patterns of prairie flowers along the bottom hem, flowers that she’d practiced on scraps of fabric until they were perfect. Claire held it delicately, as if the article of clothing was the child herself.

He watched her begin to grow accustomed to their ways, just as he watched her fight them. Her stubborn streak was a quality that intrigued him rather than drove him away. Claire’s cat was an indoor cat, not a mouser. Claire named the animals as pets, not as livestock. Claire fell in love with the sheep and when they lost the lamb, she grieved instead of moving on.

And he thought his own heart would break if he couldn’t mend hers.

The night they slid down the pile of hay was the night he noticed it again. The humming. The tug. Claire’s eyes had sparkled with a zeal for living life, for ensuring that those around her were experiencing joy to the fullest. When she’d reached the bottom of the pile of hay, he reached out to her, without pausing. Without thinking. And he felt _it_ again. The way she paused, hovering close to him, he was sure she felt it too.

Then there was the day the storm blew in. Claire had been on the roof nailing shingles, wearing the blasted breeks so he could see the crack of her arse and she none the wiser about it. They’d prepared their home, gathered the animals and children in the barn, and had waited it out together. She had sung to the children and told them stories once the storm quieted enough for voices to be heard. They had fallen asleep, red curls splayed across the blanket atop the hay, lips slack, arms flung out of their blanket cocoon. Claire had lain on her side and looked over the heads of the children at him and he scooted, gently reaching his arm over the children in a tender hug. In the morning, her hand had been in his.

He watched her grow, watched her love, watched her learn and thrive. And then he watched her drive away on her own.

This feeling, this _love_ , it was somehow the same and somehow different. When Claire drove away it was as if the songs that had returned would truly die altogether.

_But Claire came back._

It wasn’t the surge of a squall pounding against the shore. It was the waves of the tide coming in and lapping until suddenly, they’d covered the rocks on the beach.

It wasn’t the storm that rushed across the prairie after a drought and drenched everything. It was the gentle fall of an autumn rain on a parched land.

That was loving Claire.


	2. Plover: Jamie's Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part of the one quote one-shot book 2 challenge. My quote is bolded.
> 
> Jamie spends some time in the barn thinking and is followed there by Claire who has some thoughts of her own that are weighing on her.
> 
> Thanks again to @happytoobserve who saw this chapter through huge revisions!

                                                             

I went out to the barn that evening, just as I had every night before. Just as I would do over and over again. 

It was hot and the air was still. It seemed like forever since it was anything but hot and still. Not even the birds called to one another at dusk anymore. My shirt clung to me, stuck there and stained with perspiration.

Claire followed me. I didn't need to look to know that she was there. That was the thing about Claire, I could sense her, _feel_ her all the time, no matter where we were. It wasn't usual, what it was between us. It was special.

Her soul knew mine anywhere and any time could find me, that was certain. Across the vast prairie to the edge of the continent, with space and knowledge separating us, we had come together in spite of it all with a small advertisement and with letters.

I heard the soft swishing noise her shift and housecoat made brushing together as I continued to the barn door and went in. I caught a flash of her in the corner of my eye and suspected that she was barefoot. No matter how often I warned her to wear boots around the barnyard, she made her own choices.

No matter.

I had fed and watered the horses already. They'd have been safer from the coyotes and such if they were in the barn but there wasn't room for that. 

Brianna and Willie had made sure the chickens were in the coop, that the sheep were safely away for the night. Both were safely in their own beds though I was certain Brianna was either writing or reading by the final dim light that came through her window.

I waited. One breath, then two. Then Claire opened the door and leaned against it to shut it tight. She stood there a moment, my wife, letting her eyes adjust to the dimness.

"How are they?" she asked gently. "Eilidh and Ruaidh?"

The ghalidh sounded strange on her tongue yet I wished for nothing more than to hear her say it again. My words. Her words.

"See for yerself," I gestured, inviting her to stand with me.

She stood by my side and wrapped her arms -long and slender and strong-  around my middle. Her head laid against my chest, in spite of the hot evening air, right over where my heart beat.

After a time, she let out a small whisper.

"I'm sorry." She was still, the length of her body still pressed against me, the fabric of our clothes, damp with sweat, between us.

_About the rain. About the letters._

"'Tis no' yer fault, Sorcha," I reminded her, absently beginning to toy with the curls of her hair that never stayed pinned up.

"If not mine, than whose?" Her voice was a little louder that time and was edged in frustration. "We can all see that you have Brianna and William while I..." she trailed off and though she was leaned against me, I could feel her hands flutter in that way they did when she was flustered and ran out of words to explain things. She stared at the cows instead of looking at me.

_Not rain, nor letters._

_A bairn._

We both wanted a child together. Had both been disappointed that it hadn't happened as of yet. But I hadn't even considered that Claire might think I _blamed_ her for it.

She mumbled, “Even the blasted cow has a calf and I can’t even-”

I pulled far enough away to look her in the face. Used my finger to raise her chin until her eyes met mine. "'Tis no' yer fault," I repeated, more forcefully this time. “I would choose ye a thousand times over, e’en knowing fer certain there’d not be a bairn.”

Tears sparkled, clinging to the ends of her lashes.

“But I dinnae think anything certain. ‘Tis not our time, Sorcha.”

I started to sway then, beginning to dance as we often did.

“But when, Jamie?” Her voice was tremulous and I felt an urgency to reassure her.

“Mebbe this time,” I whispered, voice hot in her ear, she shivered but then looked up, just the tiniest bit of hope painted across her face.

She backed out of my embrace then, but grabbed on to the front of my shirt where she’d sewn the buttons on only the day before, her shift already slipping off her shoulder. Slowly we walked until she stood directly in front of the fresh hay, all in a pile. Once again I reminded her, “I choose ye, Claire.”

I nudged and she fell back into the hay, pulling me down with her, ending with my mouth on hers, trailing down, showering her with kisses.

“ _Christ,_ ” I sighed. “Have ye any idea how beautiful ye are, Claire? Any idea how much I love ye?” I’m sure I moaned it into the cloud of her hair.

She murmured one of her “Hmms” in response, a gentle soothing sound, then whispered, “Do you really think so? That I’m-” she stopped and started again, differently. “You would choose this, _me_ , in spite of everything?”

My wife was never one to seek reassurance and I could tell that I had been missing something, if this had worried her so gravely.

“I adore ye, mo nighean donn,” I affirmed.

“And I you.” Her voice was low and husky and my focus, my thought, was on making her forget her doubts. On reminding her of how wonderful she was.

“ **I only want to be where you are** , Claire. **Nothing else**.”

Her mouth on mine stopped all speech. She melted -almost literally- into me. I didn’t care how hot it was or if the dampness on my skin was my sweat or hers or if the straw prickled or not. 

We made love slowly and languidly in the barn that night, atop a bed of hay. We lay there after, side by side but hardly touching. Sensing more than actually feeling. At peace.

“I love ye, Sorcha. Come what may, ye ken?” It was only after I said it that I realized how foreboding the phrase sounded, “Come what may.” Because possibly what was to come was more drought, sorrow, broken dreams.

“I love you too, Jamie.”

Or maybe what was to come was love that would transcend it all.

  



End file.
